Golden Research Thoughts

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE ISSN 2231-5063 Golden Research Thoughts MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS INCLINATION MEASUREMENT ORIGINAL ARTICLE SYSTEM FOR TILTING BLENDERS USING RF MODULE Siddharth B.

1 ORIGINAL ARTICLE ISSN Golden Research Thoughts MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS INCLINATION MEASUREMENT ORIGINAL ARTICLE SYSTEM FOR TILTING BLENDERS USING RF MODULE Siddharth B. Maraje, Anmol Kumar and Badri Sravankumar Mechatronics Division,SMBS, VIT University, Vellore-India. ABSTRACT:Inclination measurement is an area of continuous research where many instruments have been developed to provide functionality as per the requirement of the system. Although variety of instruments is already present, Microcontroller based inclination measurement system provides low cost solution where higher precision is not required. The system also provides inclinations of remotely located surfaces which allow us to monitor them without actual observation. Such kinds of applications are generally found in chemical/pharmaceutical industries where raw chemicals/ingredients are mixed in typical blenders. Keywords: Inclination measurement, RF module, Container calibration.

2 MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS... INTRODUCTION :- Inclination measurement is one of the most essential activities in instrumentation engineering and has been carried out since ancient time. In many areas knowledge of surface inclination is essential before carrying out further experimentation. For example, in civil engineering, in the field of surveying, inclination of a land, to be built upon, is measured to obtain levelled surface. In the field of quality assurance, inclination measurement instruments are used for measuring an inclination as well as line straightness and flatness of a surface[1]. In flight science, knowledge of an inclination of a flight with respect to horizontal reference is essential to maintain flight stability. In an application which we have focused in this paper, i.e. in chemical or pharmaceutical industries, mixers/blenders (tilting containers) are used to carry out mixing of ingredient chemicals. After the process, mixture is poured into another container for further processing. A simple way adapted by many industries is to tilt the container by certain angle to take the mixture out [2]. Usually, in semi-automatic manufacturing plants, it is a challenge to know the container inclination. Thus, such applications need a system which can provide the knowledge of inclination of working objects to an operator who is remotely located. INCLINATION MEASURING INSTRUMENTS Several devices have been developed for measuring inclination of surfaces. One of the oldest devices is a 'spirit level. It consists of a calibrated vial filled with thick fluid like ether or alcohol. A small air bubble is purposefully introduced which always remains at the top edge (working edge) due to low specific gravity. Spirit level is placed on the surface of which inclination is to be measured. Devices like universal bevel protractor, sine bars, sine blocks, angle gauge blocks, angle dekkor [1] also provides inclination or angle between two surfaces of the object. However, these methods involve visual inspection. As the human eyes have limitations these methods are subjected to errors. Over the years, advances in electronics engineering have improved the performance and accuracy of the systems. On this basis, inclinometers are developed to provide precise angular measurement [3]. They use modern day sensors like gyroscope or tilt sensor to sense the inclination. Output is given in digital form which eliminates the limitation of purely mechanical devices. Though the instrument is precise it has certain limitations. The battery drops in power Exposing indicators to direct sunlight for a long period of time causes an offset in the voltage regulator. A regular maintenance program is essential to proper inclinometer monitoring Cost associated is more and maintenance is expensive For the application discussed in this paper, present devices don't work satisfactorily because of the stated reasons. Moreover, at critical environments where human presence is not permitted it is impossible to use the conventional inclination measurement systems. For example, in chemical industries presence of poisonous environment and in pharmaceutical plants need of high quality 'clean' and 'germfree' environment makes human presence impossible. MICRO-CONTROLLER BASED INCLINATION MEASUREMENT SYSTEM USING RF MODULE This system makes use of micro-controller to obtain and display inclination readings. Radiofrequency module transmits the data (readings) to display unit which is remotely located. The system is inspired from a water level indicator. A typical water level indicator provides the knowledge of amount of water present in the container. It can be designed to indicate extreme as well as intermediate water levels. Metal strips can be attached at levels of interest. When water comes in contact with a particular strip, the level corresponding to that strip can be displayed on LCD [5]. A perfectly horizontal container with some water level indicates a horizontal level. When the container is tilted, the level of water at tilted edge goes up with respect to un-tilted edge in horizontal case. The container can be attached to a blender. During the operation, when blender tilts, the inclination is 2

MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS... reflected at the tilted edge of the container. If sensors are affixed at tilted side, inclination of a blender can be obtained.

3 MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS... reflected at the tilted edge of the container. If sensors are affixed at tilted side, inclination of a blender can be obtained. A proper calibration will indicate the accurate inclination. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION Figure 1. Block Diagram We can remotely monitor the inclination of a blender in the range of 30 meters. The system features an RF transmitter receiver pair, avoiding the need of wires. Wires unnecessarily increase the cost as well as maintenance. A small container with sufficient water level and sensors affixed at tilted edge is attached to the blender of which inclination is to be measured. The transmitter circuit is placed along with container. The sensed level is streamed wirelessly through the RF transmitter. This is received by the receiver unit placed remotely and decoded to indicate the inclination on an LCD. It also has a buzzer that beeps when the water at tilted edge is about to overflow. Figure1 shows the block diagram of circuit along with the data flow direction. A.Circuit description Figure 2. Transmitter Circuit Figure 2 shows the circuit of the transmitter. It operates on 5V DC supply and consists of a sensor assembly, encoder (HT12E) and RF transmitter module. The sensor assembly consists of four BC547 npn transistors, each connected to a water-level-sensor metal strip corresponding to one of the four inclinations 0 degree, 30 degree, 45 degree and 60 degree. The sensors are non-corrosive stainless steel metal strips. Figure 3. Receiver Circuit 3

4 MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS... Figure 3 shows the receiver circuit which also operates on 5V DC supply. Buzzer, HT12D and RX1 are mounted on a general purpose PCB or breadboard. Decoder (HT12D), piezo buzzer and LCD are mounted on the development board. The output of the RF receiver is fed to data input pin of decoder (HT12D). A red LED is connected to VT pin of the decoder through R7. Data is processed by microcontroller (P89V51RD2) mounted on the development board. The program is written in Assembly language and assembled using ASM51 cross assembler. Code is burned into the microcontroller using the on-board RS-232 serial COM port. B.Circuit Functioning The water level at tilted edge is sensed by the sensor assembly, which is connected to 4-bit data lines (AD8 through AD11) of encoder through transistors. Depending on the water level in the tank, BC547 transistors conduct to generate a 4-bit code (refer table 1). The 4-bit code so generated is encoded by encoder. The encoded data is fed to pin 2 of RF transmitter, which transmits it serially at 433 MHz through the antenna connected to its pin 1. The transmission range of RF module is about 30 meters. The 4-bit signal from the transmitter is received by the antenna of the RF receiver. LED1 glows to indicate that a valid signal is received. The 4-bit output from decoder is processed by the microcontroller to generate an 8-bit code. The microcontroller's output is fed to data input lines of LCD1, which, in turn, shows the water level in degree. At an intermediate water level, say, 30 degree of the tank capacity, LCD shows the message Angle of inclination 30 degree. A corresponding 4-bit code is shown table 1. Figure 6 shows flow chart which is used to control the process. CONTAINER CALIBRATION AND RESULTS A rectangular container is selected for calibration. Certain amount of water is filled to mark zero degree level. The care is taken that, for the maximum inclination, water will not spill out of the container. Container is aligned with bevel protractor. As the edge tilts, the water level goes up. This increase in the water level is proportional to the angle of the bevel protractor. Table 1: Inclination angles and LCD messages 4

5 MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS... Figure 4. Calibration Concept Figure 5. Calibration Curve Figure 5 shows the graph of inclination versus length traversed by water from the bottom of the container. As the container cross-section is uniform, we get linear curve. Sensor position for intermediate angles can be calculated using calibration curve. CONCLUSION In this paper, an automatic inclination measurement system is presented for tilting blenders. Conventional systems seem unable to provide low cost and remote measurement of inclination. The system discussed in the paper allows user to remotely monitor the inclination of blenders during operation. Moreover, device is portable and can be modified as per the real time requirement. Sensors can be affixed at required angles. Linear curve makes calibration easy and with small changes in microcontroller program, correct display can be obtained on LCD screen. 5

6 MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS... REFERENCES Figure 6. Flowchart algorithm of inclination measurement system 1.Francs T. Farago and Mark A Curtis, Handbook of Dimensional Measurement, 3rd edition, Industrial Press Inc. 2.The Blender Projects. [Online]. Available: 3.The kitsnspares website.[online]. Available: 4.The 8051 projects website.[online]. Available: Xie Kaiming, Liang Shan, Pang Beibei A Flexible Inclination Measurement System Based On Wireless Sensor Network, IEEE Proc., pp 91-95, Nuno Brito, Paulo Ribeiro, Filomena Soares, Carlos Monteiro : A Remote System for Water Tank Level Monitoring and Control - a Collaborative Case-study, IEEE Proc., pp ,

WIRELESS SPEED CONTROL OF SINGLE PHASE AC MOTOR

WIRELESS SPEED CONTROL OF SINGLE PHASE AC MOTOR Rakesh Sahu 1, Sachin Tiwari 2, Satish Singh 3, Abhishek Gaurav 4 1 Assistant Professor, Deptt. Of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Gandhi Institute